ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the forms of popular memory and reconciliation that go beyond narratives of violence and war which dominate both Western and Russian media and public discourse. The lost past nostalgia that is often perceived as a paradoxical feature of post-Soviet society employed only by the losers of the transition period should not be considered unreal in the case of Grozny. Even as grass-roots efforts to reclaim the Grozny of the past rely on selective memories, they have their origins in real-life, multi-ethnic communities which had developed a shared culture and common language. Apparently, this version of the post-Soviet narrative helped them to create a real and a virtual space that allowed them to 'return' to 'their' Grozny from before the war. Remembering their communities, the people from Grozny are in a certain way rebelling against the dominant discourses of the Russian and Chechen nations.
